Guest Opinion | School Board Member Kimberly Kenne: Planning in a Time of Uncertainty

To start I would like to thank all our Pasadena Unified staff for their hard work and dedication during these unprecedented times.

Thanks to our teachers for adapting to a whole new way of instructing kids almost overnight while also dealing with changes in your personal lives.

I want to recognize that our students have had to give up so much that is meaningful to them – end of year, end of high school, and other celebrations in addition to the day to day contact with their friends and teachers. And kudos to our parents and guardians, who must now help motivate their students, monitor their students’ learning, assist with instruction and behavior management and learn new technologies and systems while handling all the other

impacts on their families and finances.

I believe one of the hardest parts of our current situation is the uncertainty. When will life get back to normal? Will there be a new normal? Will all my family and friends be okay? Will I be okay?

We do know that at some point our students will be back in school. We know that things will be different, even if the exact details are not yet clear. And we know that many students will have been negatively impacted by the time away from in-school instruction this spring.

So, while in usual times, we would have been in the midst of creating a single plan for next year, we now find ourselves in a position of needing to come up with potentially two or three different plans, with a lot of flexibility as a key component of each.

Another given is that there will be less money for next school year than we expected prior to the pandemic.

The coronavirus is hurting education in two ways – by decreasing the amount of state funding available to districts, while also increasing expenses for districts as they being to operate in a new, more costly manner.

Most education finance experts are saying that the situation is looking very bleak and may last for two or more years.

Pasadena Unified will be facing many decisions as we move forward. We were just beginning our planning and budgeting process for next year when school was dismissed. Now those plans will need to be adapted to our new situation while still including the changes that had already been planned to help us increase achievement for our students.

With fewer funds and new work to do, there may be difficult decisions to be made about existing programs and services.

It will be important to keep our parents, staff, students and community informed and involved as we make these decisions in the next few months.

At this point, districts must still finalize and approve a budget for next school year by June 30. Adjustments to that budget will probably be needed in August after tax payments are received by the state and the fiscal picture becomes clearer. Typically, PUSD has used our Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) to help explain our funding and program decisions to our stakeholders since district budget documents are not easy to read or understand. These LCAPs were supposed to have a more understandable and more transparent format this June. But on Friday, an Executive Order by the Governor postponed the new format until next year and the plans themselves until December.

It is unfortunate that this existing process of transparency and communication with stakeholders was postponed. Districts still need to plan and adopt their programs and budgets by this summer.

It is now time for the School Board to start discussing program and budget options for next year along with proposed enhancements and reductions. It is the district’s and board’s responsibility to do so in a manner that allows parents, staff, students and the community to be informed and part of a transparent process.